Proof of Forever (11 page)

He leads her through a small hallway into the back of the kitchen itself, where several weary-looking servers in hairnets are bustling about with giant, heavy chafing trays. She's hit by a burst of steamy, fishy, broccoli smell, mingled with burning metal.

Ryder turns back to face her, making a
Sh!
signal with his finger. They pass by the servers unnoticed and into a new hallway, and then into a small, grungy lounge area where there's a beaten-up old plaid sofa, wood-paneled cabinets, and a refrigerator.
“They have a staff stash,” he explains. “I found out about it once, when I had to run back here for an EpiPen for Eamon Fitz.”

Joy nods knowingly—Eamon Fitz is a younger camper famous for his asthma and allergy attacks.

Ryder swings open the refrigerator and removes a bottle of Sprite. Then he moves to the cabinets. “Bingo,” he says, procuring chips, granola bars, and cookies. He tosses a bunch of the stuff to Joy. They crouch down like criminals as they slip out of the empty lounge room and back the way they came.

They keep running even when they hit the lawn behind the dining hall, tracing the tree line toward the boys' cabins. Joy slows automatically as they approach Ryder's cabin. Even though Joy, Luce, Tali, and Zoe have snuck over here numerous times throughout the years, there's still something sort of sacred about the separation of the boys' cabins from the girls'—a certain mystique, defined by strange foot and body odors as well as the overall sense of complete chaos that rules within the boys' walls.

The stories of gore are seemingly endless. There was the time Jason Moran and Dave Krauss duct-taped Gene Yung's sheets down while he was sleeping and he woke up completely trapped in his own bunk, screaming. There was the time Sammy Green got in a fight with Elliot Burr and ended up sending Elliot's head straight through a bunk-bed ladder, splintering it—Elliot received eighteen stitches and Sammy had to leave camp early that summer. There was the time someone apparently jerked off into Soffi Sorento's sock—no one ever took credit for that one; some speculated it was Soffi himself.

Even now, as Joy waits just inside the door of the empty cabin for Ryder to retrieve his guitar, she can practically feel the testosterone emanating off the tangled sheets, the strewn towels, the twisted piles of muddy clothes and athletic gear. The air inside is heavy and still and vaguely yellow-hued, like the eye of a storm.

“Guys are pigs,” she says, shaking her head, vaguely wishing the other girls were here with her as witnesses.

“And you wouldn't have it any other way,” Ryder replies with an easy smile. “I know where we can go that's private,” he adds, leading her back out of the cabin and toward the lake. They head past the volleyball area and she wonders fleetingly if he's taking her to the Stevens.

When they get to the footbridge, he stops and gestures to the boulder that juts into the water just past the bridge. “The little waterfall over there kind of drowns out the noise, so it's a good spot to practice.”

They clamber up the side of the boulder so they're mostly concealed and set out all the snacks. Then Ryder reaches into the guitar case and hands Joy a wrinkled, folded sheet of paper. “Here,” he says, “I have to tune up.” He bends his head over the guitar, adjusting and tightening the strings. She notices how gently and easily his hands move across the frets.

Joy unfolds the paper. In the waning light, she struggles to make out the lyrics to his song, labeled at the top:
Disappear
.

“So it's two verses, chorus, one verse, and a final chorus, okay? I'll play it to you first so you can get a feel for what it's supposed to sound like,” he says. “Obviously my voice sucks so just
bear with me on that.”

His red hair appears darker as the last of the sun slides behind the mountains with a final gasp of pale blue light. He doesn't make eye contact with her as he plays, plucking at the strings percussively and staring out over the water. Joy almost feels bad for being here, as if she's invading his private space.

But when he starts singing, all thoughts of regret flee her mind. He's obviously not much of a singer—his voice is rough and strained—yet somehow that only adds to the honesty of the sound.

I call and you aren't there,

Empty room at the top of the stairs,

All your things untouched

The ribbons that you loved so much—

I pick up the books, the shirts,

Things you'll never use again.

Sometimes even sleeping hurts,

Driving myself crazy again.

And it's clear, oh so clear

You'll never be here

Because every day, a little more

You disappear, you disappear, you disappear.

Now I climb another wall,

Look out from another height,

Trying to remember it all

Scared that I just might.

But it's clear, oh so clear

You'll never be here

Because every day, a little more

You disappear, you disappear, you disappear.

Joy is shocked to feel tears pricking the backs of her eyes, and for a while she can't say anything, almost afraid to break the moment, like it's a bubble that a single wrong word could pop. The song is so much more than she expected—so much more beautiful, smart, and raw.

Eventually, he's the one to end the silence. “I know that last transition still needs some work . . .”

“Are you kidding?” She shakes her head. “It's perfect. It's so good. I almost don't feel right, singing your words. . . .”

“Oh, you have to,” Ryder says, finally locking eyes with her. “That's the whole point. If it's any good, you'll make it great.”

And so they begin practicing, at first tentatively, then with more precision and confidence. They even figure out a harmony for the chorus. The whole time Joy senses how important the song is to Ryder. She's aching to ask him what it's about—
who
it's about—but doesn't dare. After a while, she has the lyrics memorized, and begins to relax into the music, enjoying watching the way Ryder's hands move across the guitar, sometimes softly, sometimes with quick, rapid confidence.

They take a break to pass the Sprite bottle back and forth and finish off the last of the cookies.

“You ever mixed rum and Sprite?” he says, at the exact same time she blurts out: “So what's it about, the song?”

He screws the cap back onto the bottle. For a long time, he doesn't answer. “It's about my sister. She died three years ago.”

“Wow, Ryder.” Joy looks down, her throat constricting. “I had no idea. I'm so sorry, you don't have to tell me—”

“It's okay. I mean, it's
not
okay, but you know. I don't talk about it a lot.” He clears his throat and gazes out over the water. “She was in a car accident, driving with her friends. She was the only one who didn't make it.”

Joy gazes at Ryder, his eyes downturned and thick lashed, his expression unreadable in the darkness. She scoots closer to him on the boulder. She can't get over the strangeness of it all—how she barely knew Ryder existed the first time around, and here he is now, opening up to her. A whole other reality is unfolding before her, a parallel world of experience that was here all along, she just didn't have any idea, any reason to look for it.

“Does it ever get easier?” she asks now, truly curious.

“In a certain way it does,” Ryder admits. “I'll realize I've gone whole hours, or days, without even thinking about her. But then, forgetting sucks in a different way. That's what the song's about. It's like the person just keeps disappearing from your life. You thought she was already gone, but then memories start to fade, too, or your dad finally cleans out her old bedroom and donates a bunch of stuff, and with each thing, it's kind of like she's gone
again and again, ya know? So I guess the answer is yes and no.”

“Does it ever make you, well, mad?” Joy asks quietly. “I mean, how unfair it is.”

“Hell yeah. It makes me mad all the time. That's the whole thing about life, though, right?”

“What is?”

“It's unfair. That you just have to accept things, take whatever you're dealt and work with what you got. There's a lot I wish I had done differently. I wish I'd been nicer to her when we were little, and stuff like that. I wish I hadn't burned off all her Barbies' hair. I wish I'd told her how much I looked up to her.” His voice catches in his throat, and instinctively, Joy puts her hand on his arm. “But you get to a point where at least you're happy for the time you did have.”

“I wish I could say something that would help,” Joy says, her chest swollen with the weight of Ryder's confession.

“It's all right. I can't even believe I told you. But you're so . . . easy to talk to. And you're singing my song, which is pretty sweet,” he says, turning to face her, his clouded expression softening into a smile. “I'm happy about
that
. I'm happy about this,” he adds, gesturing at the space between the two of them. He leans back onto one hand, still studying her. “Has anyone ever told you your eyes are very intense? It's like you're not just looking at me, you're, like, I don't know—”

“—sucking you into my soul?” Joy suggests.

“I was gonna say vacuuming me into your vortex.” They both laugh. “No, I mean you're actually present. Like, you actually
care. But you know, your phrasing works, too.”

This close to him, she can see the tiniest bit of stubble along his otherwise smooth jaw and smell his rugged scent of sweat, dirt, and lake water. She feels a confused itch in her arms, caught somewhere between the desire to hug him and run her hands through his hair. She settles on nudging him with her shoulder.

“Come on, we should get back to our cabins. Gotta rest these pipes for tomorrow,” she says, realizing as she does that she's tired—exhausted, really, maybe from the climb earlier that day, or maybe from something else: the dark secret, eating its way through her.

When Joy slowly creaks open the door to Bunk Blue Heron later that night, the lights have already been turned off and many of the girls appear to be asleep in their bunks. Just before she lets the door close, a tiny beam of moonlight sneaks in, flashing against Sam Puliver's retainer, its plastic case open in her cubby. It glints briefly in the dark like a metallic grin, and then is swallowed again in darkness.

Sarah Hawking is snoring softly, a comforting buzz, and a few campers on the other side of the cabin are still murmuring to one another in hushed tones. It's all quiet enough that Joy can hear the crickets outside, too, loudly masturbating, or whatever it is crickets do to make that chirping noise she once mistook for the electricity of stars.

She doesn't want anyone to wake up and notice her, to ask her where she's been. She doesn't want to be forced to tell, to reveal
the secret of her shared day with Ryder. In some crazy part of her mind, she can't help fearing that by morning, she'll have realized none of this ever happened.

Hurriedly, quietly, Joy strips off her dirty rock-climbing clothes, throws on her pajamas, and dives under the covers of her top bunk.

But before she can even get settled, the crown of Zoe's blond head appears.

“I can't sleep,” she whispers.

Joy sighs. Part of her really wants to throw the covers over her head and fall into a deep, blissful sleep, as dark and numbing as the lake itself.

But another part of her misses Zoe so much she can hardly remember why she pushed her away two years ago. And her evening with Ryder has only made that feeling—that missing—
more
intense. It's as though a tightly wound clock in her chest has started to come unstuck, winding backward, and with it, all her old emotions have been released.

With hardly another thought, Joy swings back her covers. “Come on, get in,” she whispers back. “It's quieter on this side of the cabin.”

Zoe climbs up the ladder and, somewhat awkwardly, slides in next to Joy.

Now that they're lying this close, Joy remembers how often they did this that last summer and how natural it was for them then. So much space lies between them now, like two refrigerator magnets that can't line up evenly without bouncing slightly
apart due to some force within them.

They both settle onto their backs, looking up at the dark ceiling. Joy thinks of watching the clouds passing lazily overhead as she and Ryder sprawled out on the ledge of the climbing course earlier today. She can almost still see them, bright white against the blue.

“Did you hear about Hadley?” Zoe whispers after a minute. Joy shakes her head. “Apparently she gave up her V to Nate Howard after a band practice.”

Joy smiles in the darkness. “I'm just surprised she has slept with
anything
other than her horn,” she whispers. Zoe snorts. Joy knows it's mean, but it feels so good, so right, to be gossiping with Zoe again, whisper-laughing together. And at least Hadley's getting some. Joy has never been with anyone.

At least not yet.

Instantly, Ryder's face flashes into her mind.

She listens for a while to Zoe's breathing, wondering if she has drifted off yet and debating whether to force her to wake up and move, wondering if she should tell her about Ryder after all. Instead, Joy lies awake, letting the ceiling turn to swirls of infinite space the longer she stares, thinking about what Zoe said. Thinking about Hadley, and how you never really know anyone. Like Ryder, and the story of his dead sister.

Then she hears Zoe's voice, whispering drowsily in the darkness. “Joy?”

“Yeah?” Zoe's shoulder rests against her own, a familiar sensation, even after all this time.